He Can’t Say He Wasn’t Warned

His recent years in the mid-West may have led Mr. Barnes to believe the Civil War is over. So it is, for the mid-West. So it is, too, for Baltimore but only barely. In fact, the city was just about settling back to regard the whole thing with a sort of historical aplomb when, quite casually, Mr. Barnes stumbled into the city’s monuments.

And what monument does he choose as his very first sacrifice to traffic efficiency? None other than the Union Soldiers and Sailors Monument at the Mount Royal entrance to Druid Hill Park. Never a word about the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument; that’s just to keep flaunting its wings at Mount Royal near Mosher street as if, indeed, the Confederacy had actually won the war.

Mr. Barnes treats the whole thing with what we suspect is dangerous detachment. True, General Butler’s Union troops no longer glower over the city from Federal Hill. And, equally true, Major Harry Gilmor’s hot-eyed rebel cavalry ceased dashing about the Long Green Valley many years ago. But let Mr. Barnes not be deceived; the emotions they once stirred in Baltimore are even now in no more than a light snooze. One false step and the snooze could become a snort.

In snatching down our monuments, Mr. Barnes has need of scrupulous neutrality. If the Union Monument goes, so must the Confederate Monument go. Likewise, he cannot rip away the Columbus Monument and leave the Pulaski Memorial. Should the statue to Lafayette, George Washington’s ally, go down, how long can Washington himself endure?

Maybe Mr. Barnes had better leave our monuments alone.